Next on Fox: Rupert's Dodgers

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla.: Media conglomerates like Turner Broadcasting (Braves, Hawks) and ComCast (Philadelphia 76'ers, Flyers) have long known that if you're paying to broadcast a local sports team, you might as well buy it. The word is "synergy," and Fox kingpin Rupert Murdoch has just raised the stakes.

Now that baseball owners -- over Ted Turner's lonely objections -- have approved the sale of the Los Angeles Dodgers to Murdoch for a record $350 million, the News Corp. head will now have a financial interest not only in the Dodgers but in 21 other teams, a fact which troubled the other owners temporarily but will quickly make the Dodgers the most relentlessly marketed team in baseball.

Cablevision, which already owns New York's Knicks and Rangers along with MSG, the channel they're broadcast on, wants in on the savings too. Looking to avoid renewing its $486 million, 12-year cable TV deal with the Yankees to broadcast the team's games, the company is in talks with team owner George Steinbrenner to buy the team for good -- and for about the same money.